MLB Tacitly Admits Defeat, Awards 2025 All-Star Game To Atlanta; Commissioner Apology Next?

MLB's decision to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta during the 2021 season was an inexcusable, indefensible cave to pressure from the far left.

And on Thursday, the league took one small, tacit step towards admitting their embarrassing, ridiculous mistake.

The league announced that Atlanta would host the 2025 All-Star Game, marking a historic defeat for commissioner Rob Manfred, Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams, and woke sports columnists.

And make no mistake, this is a defeat.

In 2021, when Manfred announced that he had bought into misinformation from Stacey Abrams and Biden, who called Georgia's voting rights bill, "Jim Crow on steroids," he said that Atlanta would "certainly be an option at some point in the future." But only if the state made changes that he "would need to see," ostensibly meaning that he'd reconsider once Abrams and Biden were happy.

Except as Georgia Governor Brian Kemp pointed out Thursday, the state's made no changes to their voting rights bill. And Manfred still awarded Atlanta the All-Star Game.

Even just last year, Manfred was still defending his decision to move the game based on his unquestioning acceptance of misinformation from the left.

READ: ROB MANFRED SAYS HE WOULD MAKE THE ‘SAME DECISION’ TO MOVE ALL-STAR GAME OUT OF ATLANTA

Given his past stance, public comments and Georgia's steadfast response, it's hard to imagine a more humiliating admission of guilt than today's announcement.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred answers questions during an MLB owner's meeting at the Waldorf Astoria on February 10, 2022, in Orlando, Florida. Manfred addressed the ongoing lockout of players, which owners put in place after the league's collective bargaining agreement ended on December 1, 2021. (Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)

Atlanta Gets All-Star Game That Should Never Have Been Moved

While Thursday's announcement is a welcome change, it's correcting a mistake that should never have happened.

Far left columnists like Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times wrote profound, purposeful disinformation about Georgia's voting rights bill in 2021. The institutional left, so consistently represented by progressive sportswriters, uncritically parroted talking points from Abrams, Biden and activist groups. Unsurprisingly, they were almost immediately proven wrong.

Voter turnout in Georgia set records in 2021, and in 2023, 0% of black voters reported poor experiences casting their ballots. Equally unsurprising, none of those involved ever acknowledged that they were wrong, apologized for costing Atlanta business owners tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in revenue, or admitted that their political bias led them to believe misinformation.

Sure enough, that reality denial continues today. Shaikin's announcement was laughably to the point, ignoring his role in influencing Manfred while refusing to acknowledge that the so-called "concerns" were proven laughably false.

Manfred's initial decision betrayed one of his biggest faults as commissioner: a startling weakness and inability to confront left wing political activists.

Instead of telling Abrams, Shaikin and Biden to pound sand, that MLB had no business getting involved in local legislation that had nothing to do with them, Manfred caved. He could have listened to groups on the right who predicted, accurately, that the voting rights bill had nothing to do with "suppression" and everything to do with improving election processes. But he listened exclusively to left wing groups, showing an all-too common trait among corporate executives. Short-sighted political thinking.

Sure enough, he then moved the 2021 All-Star Game to Colorado, a state with arguably tougher voting restrictions to Georgia. What a disgrace.

MLB Should Apologize

In announcing the decision to give Atlanta the game in 2025, Manfred tacitly admitted his mistake.

But that's not enough.

The league, Shaikin, the player's alliance and other groups involved in the 2021 decision should apologize to Atlanta, Georgia and MLB fans for insulting their intelligence and putting partisan politics first.

It's not enough to simply give Atlanta the game; Manfred needs to own up to his mistakes publicly, and reassure the public that this kind of embarrassment won't ever happen again. Sports leagues, particularly the NBA, never benefit from planting their flag on one side of the political debate.

Manfred did that with his embarrassing 2021 decision. He may have learned his lesson by now, but the left needs to learn theirs. And only by Manfred publicly admitting that he was misled, can Abrams, Biden and the left wing sports media learn theirs.